This application is a continuation of part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/833,662 filed on Apr. 27, 2004 now abandoned, which claims the benefit of the earlier filing date.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a ball connecting body for a rolling motion apparatus, and more particularly to a ball connecting body for a ball screw or a linear guide-way, thereby preventing the balls from colliding and rubbing each other. Especially, the ball connecting body of the present invention has a multi-directional bendable function by the special design of the connecting member.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional linear guide-way and ball screw employ rolling members, such as balls or rollers, to function as a force-transmitting medium, and application of the balls is the most popular. During the rotation process of the balls, the balls mutually collide and rub, thereby producing noise and causing inconvenience of operation. For solving this problem, the prior art simulates the method of the rotating ball bearing to make the plastic or rubber material into a belt-shaped ball connecting body for separating two adjacent balls, so that the two adjacent balls will not contact mutually. However, when applied to the rotating ball bearing, the linear guide-way or the ball screw, the ball connecting body cannot be bent in an arbitrary direction of the three-dimensional path due to its belt-shaped design, so that the ball circulation system is only moved along the two-dimensional plane, and cannot move along the three-dimensional path, for example, U.S. Pat. No., 2,366,120, 5,429,439, 5,562,346, and 5,758,975, thereby greatly limiting the circulation design of the linear guide-way and the ball screw. In addition, some designers may bend the conventional belt-shaped ball connecting body by the slight elasticity of the belt-shaped ball connecting body, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,993,064. However, it is difficult to bend the belt-shaped ball connecting body, while the returning radius is apparently enlarged, thereby increasing the space of the returning path, so that the conventional belt-shaped ball connecting body cannot completely satisfy the requirements of the industry.